word (wûrd)
n.
1. A sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing or printing, that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or of a combination of morphemes.
2. A weblog that you are reading, right now.
Mr.B is a thirty-something actor/improviser living in Chicago, IL.
He performs at several local theaters and this is, for him, a very happy life.
After a few drinks, though, he will tell you that he secretly wishes that he were paid to be a writer.
Until that actually happens, the words are freely given here, on his blog.
Want to link to "word" in your own blog?
First, thanks! I appreciate your passing the word along.
Second, I ask one thing of anyone who wants to link to "word". Rather than link to it, using my actual name, I ask that links to word, actually say simply "word" or "Mr.Bs blog".
I do this to protect myself from current and future employers who might come here and be distressed to see how often I say the word "fuck" or talk about "our fucking president" or how much I want to "fuck Rosario Dawson".
Your kind consideration keeps the Internets free for me to use dirty words and I thank you for it!
In the comments to "The Zombies - A Rose For Emily", Jady writes a brief note, asking for an update on how things are going with Emily. So, I thought I would drop a quick blog entry, giving the ley of the land, in that regard.
Meisner class ended last Tuesday and she wasn't there, actually. Her flight landed at O-Hare, with thirty minutes to go before the end of class. We knew, in advance, that she wouldn't be there.
And so it was, that her text message to me, saying "So glad to be back! How was class? Was my scene partner there? Did he say anything stupid?" actually came through, as I was onstage, doing my scene from "Battle of the Bands." I reached down, silenced the vibration in my pocket and went on with the scene.
After class, when I saw the message, I was thrilled to hear from her again. She's in town, less than 20 minutes before I get contact from her. I take that as a good sign. We had a pleasant chat, via text, about how class went and how stupid her scene partner generall is. Just checking in with each other. It was nice.
A day later, she responded to the email that I sent her while she was gone for the vacation. I swear, it was all business. She's looking for a new headshot photographer and I've talked to her about using Greg.
She's also going to audition for "Fugue", which is good, because it's an amazing show and she's actually a smart, talented, emotive actress. She should be a good match for the show. (Leaving aside that it would mean three more months in rehearsal with her and two months performance with her. Possibly more.)
Tony playfully accused me of casting the show with my dick. I swear I'm not. If she couldn't do the show and do it well, I never would've mentioned it to her. And this whole thing is entirely "dick-free", at this point. The most physical contact that we've had was a warm, pleasant hug. Entirely asexual. It was just nice, being close to her. Even when I am alone, I don't fantasize about her. I'm crushing on her, not lusting after her. That stuff will come later, probably. I'm not rushing anything. I could do the show with her and moon over her a little bit, but I won't make an actual pass at her. It's not that kind of crush.
Yesterday, I got a nice, long email from her. She responded to my headshots discussion and talked about how excited she is about "Fugue" auditions and then ended things off asking about my "midnight comedy show". Apparently, she and some of her friends are going out that night and she's thinking about seeing "Sickest Stories".
Oh Lord. Of course, she would come on the night that I'll be dressing up like Darth Vader. Why would she come any other night?!?
I might have to reassess the entrance that I'd worked out for myself.
This is my life.
A 33 year old man who has to decide whether he should "dry-hump" a room-ful of total strangers, in a Darth Vader costume, with his fancy-pants light-saber standing in as his penis, possibly risking offense with the 26 year old girl that he fancies.
I don't think that normal people have to think about that sort of thing.
My friend Kyle has got one of the coolest side gigs around. He's doing designs for the next wave of Marvel Comics collectible cards. It's a pretty sweet gig.
The deal is, he designs and draws original artwork of 150 Marvel heroes and villains on these blank Marvel Masterworks cards. Marvel approves the design and Kyle ships them the cards with the original artwork on them. He ships the original cards to Marvel and they place them in one out of every eleven cases of cards. When collecters buy the packs of cards, they have a chance of finding a card with original, one-of-a-kind artwork on it. Straight from the artist! Kyle says that the collecters chase after these cards and trade the shit out of them on ebay.
Well, as soon as I heard that he's doing original designs of Marvel heroes and villains, I started pressuring him to let me be IN one of the cards! To draw a hero of villain that looks like me!
I thought that would be the coolest thing, ever. To know that there's a Marvel collecters card out there somewhere, with my mug on it.
I had no idea which character I would be. With a face THIS pretty, all the chiseled heroes and villains are right out. No Captain America. No Wolvering. No Mr. Fantastic for this big melon.
But I knew it had to be done! So, I whined and begged and pleaded and bought him a beer and he eventually agreed to put me in a card. He even said, "You might make a cool Avalanche!"
So, when Kyle texted me today to tell me to come over and pose for the pic, I immediately agreed. Kyle remembered the promise that he made to me a month or so ago and saved one of the last ten cards in the set to pose me as the character.
We settled down with his Marvel Encyclopedia and began flipping through, looking for characters that I would match. We considered "Doc Samson" and "Apocalypse". Both guys with a BIG noggin. And then we flipped a page and saw our guy... and knew we found our character.
"Oh yeah, dude," he said, "That's it. That's the guy!"
We grabbed a pair of sunglasses and took a couple of pictures and Kyle directed me on what he was looking for and six or seven pictures later, we were done.
Now, I'm not a perfect match for this guy. For one thing, I'm missing his cool-ass costume and his amazing gear. And well ... his hairline isn't receding. But Kyle assures me that he can tweak all of that in the final sketch.
So, which villain am I?
You tell me.
These are the two pics that Kyle settled on. He's going to pick one of them, use it for the pose and add the stuff that it's missing.
It's a contest, baby!
Take a look at them and make a guess on which villain I am.(You've got QUITE enough hints scattered throughout this entry, thankyouverymuch. You DID catch them, didn't you?) Post your guesses in the comments section and I'll let you know when and if you nail it. I will even offer a prize of some kind for the person who gets it correct. Two guesses per person, please! Bits are welcomed, but not likely to win the contest!
Here are my villainous pics! Take a look!
I will post a scan of the finished card here, when he sends it to me. And I'll post the wiener of this contest and their prize here, when it happens!
Thus begins the journey of waiting until MARVEL releases the card, somebody finds it in their ultra-rare card pack, puts it up on ebay and I bid on it and try to buy it for my own personal home collection. (I'm framing that bad boy!)
One more thing: Kyle's coolness abounds. It was cool of him to remember the conversation. It was even cooler that he sought me out to make it happen. And it's the supreme coolness that he is actually making it happen. He's good peoples.
UPDATE: Nevermind. Paul Imboden nailed it in the first guess. I'll be modeling for The Sinister Doctor Octopus. Thanks for playing!
I don't know if I've mentioned this on the blog or not, but it looks like I'm going to be doing the re-mount of the Theater Momentum show, "Fugue". The show rehearses from August through November. In November, the show runs on Saturday nights at The Theater Building on Halsted St.
Tony and I are the only returning cast members from the original run. Don is directing the show again. And all three of us are interested in finding our way to a similar place where the last show was and evolving it ahead to the next level. I've heard that several talented improvisers are coming out to audition for the show, including Jamie Buell, Harz Sondericker, Regan and a couple other guys.
I haven't heard of any girls who are auditioning for the show. And I know that none of the girls from the first show are coming back. I suspect that there are at least 4 - 5 slots open for talented, polished, rocking female improvisers. So, if you're packing a pair of ovaries and you're ready to do adult dramatic improvisation, dealing with actual human experiences, you should consider booking an audition. I say, without hesitation, that it's one of the most rewarding theater experiences that I've had in the Chicago improv scene.
Here's a link to the CIN post about auditions, with dates times and email addresses to book your slot. If you sign up, drop me a comment here so that I'll know to look for you. I'll be at auditions all day on Saturday. Likely I will see you there.
Hurry up and check out this footage before it goes away.
It's the promo of TRON 2 that they showed at the Comic Con, this weekend. There is no movie, yet. Disney execs were showing it to see if there was any interest.
As you may be aware, I recently got on board with my own MySpace page. I dropped some pictures in it and added a few friends and threw a "Decemberists" song on it. "Red Right Ankle" from "Her Majesty, The Decemberists" And I left it be.
I'm not a big "Myspace" type of guy. The people that I want to have contact with, I write emails to or call. Believe it or not, there are actually people from my past that I want to avoid. Ex-girlfriends, lost friends, people that I hurt, people that hurt me. I know they can google me and find my Playground profile page. I'm cool with that. That's a passive shingle, hung out to advertise me and where I am. It doesn't offer actual contact. (I even work to NOT put my own name on my blog to keep that from being Google-searchable.)
Confident that my meager little Myspace page would see very little traffic, you can imagine my horror and anxiety, when Mia found me and asked to "befriend" me. Maybe you've heard me mention Mia before. If you were in "Fugue" with me last summer, you might remember me talking about her on the day that we told stories about "My Biggest Regret." This is my first reference to her on my blog. Perhaps I should give a little backstory.
I met Mia in my first week of college. It was in the Greenroom for the theater department. Wednesday night of my first week there. Theater Production class, level 1. Wednesday nights, all of the theater dept. would take Prod. to work on sets and costumes for the upcoming mainstage shows. I entered the room with my friend, Alan, and Mia was in the back of the room, talking to her friend Stephanie. (Strange, that I can still remember seeing her for the first time, 15 years later.) I stopped in my tracks and said, "Who IS that girl?"
Kevin, the old soul of the department, answered, "That's Mia. She's a junior. She's an actress in the department. Why?"
"Because I think I'm supposed to be with her." I said. Unable to look away from her.
"Good Luck," he said, unimpressed, "She just ended a three year engagement to a guy in the military. She's probably pretty broken up about it."
"We'll just see about that," I said.
I would like to think that I went up to her and announced my intentions of wooing her, right then and there. But I didn't. That's not my style. Instead, I probably asked quietly to be assigned to whatever chore she was doing, so that I could get to know her better. That began my Theater Prod career, working in the costume shop.
Mia was 21 years old, back then. Two years older than me. She had piercing blue eyes and long, straight blonde hair. Her skin was pale, white and she was thin and definitively feminine. She was all curves and long arms and legs and she had the rugged, undeniable physicality of a young mare. She was also a strange mix of preternatural grace and unpredictable klutz. You would never know if she was going to make an amazing, beautiful entrance or trip, pull down a buffet tablecloth, as she fell. She kept things pretty lively.
It was a slow courtship. She was pretty fragile from her breakup. But she was open to my friendship. We would call each other on the phones in our dorm rooms, point out a standup comedy show on tv and watch it together, laughing at the jokes over the phone. We took long walks around campus together. She burned me cassettes of music. (Yeah, cassettes. It was the 90's.) We loaned each other books. We ate chinese together, at the crappy off-campus restaurant. We performed together in my first show in college. "Alice in Wonderland." I was the Mad Hatter. She was the March Hare. I think I have a picture of that show, in my books, at home.
Over time, with patience and confidence, she lowered her defenses and we transitioned easily from friends to a dating couple. I can remember our first kiss. My dorm room. Late at night. Laying together, watching tv and talking, our faces right by each other and she leaned over to me and we kissed softly and for a long time. It was lovely and sublime. I still remember that kiss, 15 years later.
Mia was older than me. She was more experienced, intimately, than I was. As things slowly progressed between us, she taught me things that I still remember and use today. She got me used to the idea of being alone and naked with a girl. She taught me how to give and receive and effortlessly shift from one to another. That it was okay to ask for something from your partner, if you wanted it. She taught me the touches and the kisses that pleasured a woman. I was nearly a novice when I met her and she was a patient, caring teacher. Maybe that was her way of giving back to me for being so patient with her, when she needed time.
We dated for the last half of my freshman year. For the holidays, we went home and met each others families. I instantly loved her dad. He built his own house out in the country. I loved visiting it. (I remember exactly where it is, back in Louisville. I could drive you there tomorrow, if I needed to.) My mom loved Mia too. They would actually talk and were friendly with each other. Which was something that my mom never did with my girlfriends, back then. We both went into my sophomore year and her senior year, full of promise and excitement to begin the school year as a couple.
In the beginning of that year, things were as good as they could've been. People knew who we were. They knew we were a couple. They treated us like a couple. It just felt right. We got cast in shows easily, very early on. We even worked together at a local Balloon Delivery company, doing costumed balloon deliveries together. She would drive and I would show up in the gorilla costume. Or I would drive and she would show up in the Playboy bunny costume. Silly times. Happy times.
I can still remember cold, spring nights, staying in her dorm room until the latest possible moments and then walking back to my own dorm room, wrapped up in one of her blankets that she'd loaned me. I took it so that I could still smell her, back in my own room. We were as close as two young people in love could've been. We had potential to be together, as a strong, stable couple for the rest of our lives. That was a very real possibility. We talked about it often, preparing ourselves for that reality.
I know what went wrong. I know why that didn't happen. I can see the divergence from that path to the path that we took.
Because I was the one who made it happen.
This is why I told this story as "My Biggest Regret" at Fugue rehearsal.
It's my fault that it's gone.
Shortly after the beginning of my sophomore year, I moved into a house, off campus with the theater technicians, in the department. Great guys, all of them. With a rough, tough demeanor that involved late night drinking, sleeping late, barely doing the homework, but rehearsing show after show and building set after set. The two "captains" of that theater house, which we dubbed "The Maze" because of it's seemingly random hallways throughout the refabbed house, were Kevin and Rob. Two guys who had a big influence on me. To a lesser extent, the younger guys in the house had my ear, as well. We ate together. Worked together. Hung out together. Hit parties together. As close as hetero boys could get.
Rob and Kevin latched onto an idea very early on that began as a "whisper campaign" at parties and in private talks. Their central thesis was, that I was a sophomore. Mia was a senior, about to graduate. Logically, her next step was to leave KY and go out into the world to begin auditioning and beginning her career. With a boyfriend, two years away from graduation, she would hold herself back, hanging out in Ky, waiting for me. And she would lose two critical years of the first part of her career. She might not ever recover from it. She might not have a career, after all, if she waited for me. Worse than that, they explained that it was selfish and cruel of me to hold onto her. To hold her back. I should know better. I should man up and do what needed to be done. If I didn't break up with her, I would be ruining her life.
Initially, I fought all of this off with the responses that you're probably thinking of, on your own, right now. Nothing is certain. Two years isn't that long of a time, after all. That she and I will be better able to seek out work together, as a team, than we can, alone. That it was none of their business. That it was up to her and I.
The crack in that shell of defenses, though was shame and fear. The thing that I couldn't bear was the thought that I was being selfish and that I was hurting the woman that I loved. Nothing scared me more. And as time passed and the "whisper campaign" continued, my defences wore down and I began to understand their rationale. I came around to their way of thinking. My good instinct to protect her got twisted and I became convinced that the person I needed to protect her from, was me.
So, I put up walls. I started putting distance between us. I stopped returning calls. And as the school year ended and we began focusing on the summer, I began putting steps in place to separate the two of us.
Of course, she immediately knew something was going on. And she tried to understand it or identify it, in her own, sweet ways. But I waved off her concerns, certain that i was doing the right thing. Every day, I got a little farther away from her, while I was physically right there, next to her.
We worked a summer camp together. Her summer camp. She worked it every summer. And that summer, we worked it together. Herding kids all summer, kept us both busy. We would occasionally sneak away from our kids, out into the woods for a romantic interlude. But they became fewer and far between.
There were tears. And fights. She would righteously fight me and challenge me for information. For clarification. For reassurance. And I would deny her, over and over again. I often times would deny that anything was happening at all and run away from the fights. Lord, we were both hurting so, so much. We both wanted the same thing, to be together. But I was crippled by a misinformed sense of obligation and duty and worse of all, I wasn't sharing any of this with her. I was strangling the relationship, for reasons only I could understand.
The last time I saw her, as my girlfriend, was Thanksgiving, 1995. She came to my house to have dinner with my family. I met her at the end of the driveway and told her that I didn't want her to come in. That this was the last time we would see each other. She sat in her car and cried and looked at me and said, "Why? Why? I don't understand why you are doing this. What has happened between us?" and I asked her to leave and I turned my back on her and walked to the house, openly crying, myself. She did. She left. I could hear her speed off. I got to my backyard and stood out in the cold, night, looking up at the stars and wondering if I was doing the right thing or not. I was hurting so, so much. I just didn't see the simple solution, in front of me.
Standing there, in the backyard, I stepped off of "The Way Things Should Be" and stepped onto "The Way That Things Will Be From Now On". That was the point where the two paths separated and we went down the absolute wrong one. The point where everything was lost.
When I got back to school, after the Thanksgiving break, I began a long, slow, miserable meltdown. I stopped going to classes. I failed them, left and right. I threw myself into shows and roles. I was shredded, emotionally, and as it turns out, an actor that devastated is interesting to watch onstage. Even as my personal life was crumbling around me, I was getting more and more popular in shows and at parties. I began drinking for the first time. I also began working through a serious addiction to the dance department. I bedded dancer after dancer. By the end of my junior year, I had doubled the number of people that I'd slept with, in my entire life. I cut a wide swath through the department, sleeping with anyone who would let me. I had no idea that I was trying to fill a giant emotional hole with something that would never fill it.
Eventually, I dropped out of college. My college advisor and mentor died of cancer and that was pretty much it for me. I worked long hours at a video store and played video games. I discovered weed and acid and mushrooms and spent as much of my time, as fucked up as I possibly could've been. I had my phone disconnected. I ate shitty food and put on weight. And still, broken girl after broken girl would climb into my bed, find out how hollowed out I was and then they would move on.
In what would've been the year after my senior year, I was asked to speak at the memorial for my dead professor. I was strung out, most of the time, but I got my shit together long enough to give a loving tribute to him. I have a videotape of the eulogy that I gave for him. I still think that was one of the only, truly good things that I've done in my life. It was a beautiful eulogy.
Mia was there.
She came back from Pennsylvania to see the memorial for our mutual teacher and friend. It was the first time that I'd seen her since the breakup. And I avoided her as much as possible. I was a bloated, strung-out, long-haired, weed and booze addict. I wasn't aware of how bad things had gotten, until I saw her and remembered who I was, before I lost her. After I spoke at the memorial, I walked out the back of the theater and went to my local bar and began drinking, almost immediately, telling the story to anyone who would listen.
After the memorial, there was a reception. After the reception, the theater people came to the bar.
Mia came with them.
She found me in a booth and slid into the opposite side of the booth, painfully aware of the vast differences between the person she'd lost and the person who was sitting across from her. I was lost. I had no plans. I was directionless. I was not in school anymore, but I was still in my college town. I had no prospects.
She had a wedding ring.
I looked at it and any hope I had of anything ever being right in my world again, absolutely fell apart. I started laughing and crying at the same time. The dam broke and the words started to fall out of me. She asked a few questions, at first, but after a bit, she just sat there, looking at me, while I told her everything. Everything. The breakup and beyond. The whole, ugly tale. I didn't put any blame on her. How could I? It was entirely my fault. I couldn't draw the connections then, between the breakup and the wreckage that I'd become, but I can see it right now. A direct line from losing her to losing myself.
She asked me to walk her to her car. I settled my tab and staggered out of the bar, still wearing my suit from the memorial. My long, greasy hair slipped out of the ponytail and hung in my face. I was literally hiding behind my hair. We walked for a bit, not talking too much. Finally, I asked her about the ring and she said that she was engaged now. Soon to be married. To a good man. A guy she met in her first acting gig out of college. He loved her to death and they'd dated for a year or so, before he proposed and she'd accepted. And that's where we were.
Who knows if there was a chance that she could've broken the engagement with him and been with me. The man that was standing next to her didn't look like a winning candidate. I was as low as I'd ever been in my life. And I'm sure that it made the new husband look that much better. Beyond that, she carried her own pain and regret from the breakup. I'm sure that there were hard feelings still. I knew then, that she couldn't leave her new life behind to be with me, even if I'd asked. So I didn't ask.
I do remember that she said, "I wish you'd told me what you were doing. I wish you didn't keep it from me. If I'd known what you were doing, I would've told you that it was my choice to be with you. That I didn't care about starting my career, right then and there. That I would've waited for you and we would've done it together. It would've worked out for us both." She was so tender with me. But it was the worst possible thing that she could've said. It was confirmation of the reality of what I'd feared. With the best intentions, I'd fucked up my life and my future and the life that I would've wanted to live with her had been a possibility. A certainty. And it was irreparably gone. Absolutely lost.
She got in her car and drove off. That was the last time I saw her. That was the summer of 1995. 13 years ago.
Somehow, I got home and went to bed. Somehow, I got up the next day and made it in to work. Somehow, I got through that week, without destroying my liver. Somehow, I got past that month, without starving to death or passing out in the snow. Somehow, I got through the next month and even got a contract working at a pretty reputable children's theater. Somehow, I got to the end of that contract and rented a house and got a job at a security company. Somehow, I made my way up the ranks of that company and saved up enough cash to move to Chicago. That was in October, 2000.
Sure, I used to Google her, trying to keep up with her career. Once, I found a picture of her in the cast of a murder-mystery show in PA and I scanned the picture for a clue about which guy was the husband. I never figured it out. I can't remember when I let her go and stopped looking for her and stopped asking people about her, but eventually I did. I healed up some of the scars that were left on me. I made new and more interesting mistakes in relationships and one day, in a Fugue rehearsal I told the whole story, realizing that it had been years since anyone had heard all of that stuff. The Fugue cast was supportive and listened to the whole terrible tragedy and knew instantly how deeply personal the shame and guilt was. Afterwards, they hugged me and supported me. It was just one of those sorts of rehearsals, I guess.
You would think that re-hashing that stuff would've brought her back to mind. I would've googled her again or looked for new information, but I didn't. I was dating someone else and that was my focus and I had pretty much let go of Mia entirely.
And then I got the Myspace Friend Request from her two weeks ago.
I was already feeling pretty fragile lately. And I accepted the Friend request, without looking to see who it was. I got a simultaneous request from her theater company (ran by her and her husband) and accepted that too, before I knew what I was doing. Once I clicked on her Myspace page and realized who and what that was, I absolutely fell apart.
Boom. Ran over by a bus that I'd set in motion, 15 years ago.
They're still married. 11 years now. It'll be 12, this October. She's back in Ky, living with her family and him... and her two kids. A boy and a girl. I started to see the pictures of them and I lost my shit. Crazy, hurtful, hoarse-cries of fresh despair erupted out of me. Luckily, no one was home. I couldn't control myself anyways, if they were. I just fell apart, there in my office. An absolute wreck.
On Itunes, the song "Red Right Ankle" was on repeat and I let it play, one song in an endless loop, for three hours and I looked at picture after picture from their marriage and the parenting of their children. I saw christmas pictures. Presents being unwrappd. Kids freaking out of toys. I saw Halloween pictures of her son as Spiderman and her daughter as a princess. She, herself, wore devil horns and smiled at the camera, devilishly. I saw picnic pictures of the kids with her parents. There was her dad. I knew and liked that guy. And in the pictures, he is happily holding his grand-daughter. Beautiful. I saw shows and costumes and sets and vacations and camping trips and birthday cakes and first days of school and breakfasts and school pageants. Over 300 pictures in all.
Pictures of a life that was supposed to be mine. Holidays that I was supposed to celebrate. Children that I was supposed to parent. A life with her, as wife, lover, partner and mother, that he got to have with her. A life that I would never have. I couldn't help but think that some guy was living the life that I was supposed to have. That the wrong guy was doing the job.
He has a web presence on the page, too. They share it and as deeply as I dipped into the pictures, I poured over his writings too. He has self-doubts like anyone does. He has a history of bi-polar stuff in his past. And he has alcoholism in his family history. And he is getting fatter, as he gets older. And he fears that he can't provide for his wife and kids. They're all three living in a converted garage at her parents house and have been for the last five years. She works in a Starbucks to help make ends meet. He's in nursing school, but is failing her classes.
As much as they love each other and their family, there are some sacrifices being made too. I couldn't help but wonder if I would be making those sacrifices too, to be with her. To be a parent with her. Or would our lives be different? Better?
She and I planned to move to Chicago, together. We both wanted to pursue acting and improv and comedy training here. I can't help but think that my life would be very similar to what it is now, only she would be there to share it with me. And the painful string of failed relationships that I've had from the day that she drove off my parents house, never would've happened. I wouldn't be as hard and and as crippled as I am now. I would've been in a singular, stable, loving relationship for 15 years now. A different man than I am now. I think a better man than I am now.
Well, of course, thinking all of this, fucked me up for a few days. For three or four nights in a row, I would go to my computer, put that song "Red Right Ankle" on repeat (it was the soundtrack for this painful, new experience) and look through those pictures, examining not the kids or her, but the living space that they were in. The books on the bookshelves. The candles on the table. The layout of the room. Where the door is. Where the bed is. Where they ate meals. The details that the pictures showed, which made up the rest of the reality of their life.
I don't think I would've done this, if I hadn't been so sure that it was where I was supposed to be, but just wasn't.
I was, of course, freshly shocked and horrified, when she made a comment on my page.
"So... how the hell are ya?"
I sat on it for two days before I attempted a response. The message that I sent her was a carefully contructed effort at diplomacy. I didn't know if the husband would see it first. So, I kept it light and breezy. I talked about Chicago, Maggie, theater, comedy, the upcoming tours and whatnot. I included a short paragraph about how I saw the kids in the pics and that they were beautiful and how happy and proud I was for her. I asked her to shoot me a message back. To let me know how she was doing and what she was up to. I wished her well. I sent the message. And waited for her response.
Two days after I sent it, with no response, I included a short comment on her page, letting her know that I had answered her in a short message and not a comment, but I wanted to let her know, in case she didn't check them regularly.
And a week went by, without a response. Then another week went by. Still no response.
I stopped listening to "Red Right Ankle" on repeat. I stopped checking my Myspace page for her response.
Every horrible scenario that I imagined, never happened. Every conversation that I dreaded, never ocurred. Every regret that I was ready to re-examine and lay out, weren't called for.
And I moved on.
It's now weeks later and I'm not looking for a response from her anymore. As much as it hurt, that first night to have contact with her again. As much as it tore me apart to see her as a happy, beautiful, loving mother, even that feels distant and removed. Abstract. Like a concept for a story idea that someone told me once and less like "the path that I should've gone down, but didn't". It feels removed.
It got a little hairy there, in the beginning. I did get obsessed. I did get ship-wrecked by things I couldn't have seen coming. I have a reminder that there are parts of me, hidden in the dark corners, that are still pulsing with regret, 15 years after their terrible births. That I have held onto regrets, long after they could've been let go of. I suppose you could say that I have unresolved issues, here.
At the same time, I am aware, standing on this side of that experience, that things aren't always as bad as you can imagine them getting. As bad as I thought it would've been, it wasn't that bad. As bad as I hurt, that first night, I'm better now. If I were to have contact with her, in some future date, I think I'll be less interested in exploring my shame and regrets. I'll be less interested in comparing my life now, with my fictional life that could've been. I'll be better able to handle contact with her and not be shattered by the process.
In fact, I'm recording all of this here, as a way of putting it in a nicely designed, lovingly-constructed box and letting it all that go. The weight of carrying around who I was and what I did is lessened by the sharing of the tale. Sure, I was young and dumb in college. I "good-intentioned" myself out of something really good. Mistakes were made. As they often are done, by the young and inexperienced. Discussing blame and accountability and reasons, for injuries sustained 15 years ago is time, breath and energy wasted.
Doing a little research for Jay Maynard's upcoming appearance at "Sickest Stories" I ran across this clip from his likeness's appearance on South Park last season. The editing is a little sloppy, but it does a nice job of showing you a clip of what every internet celebrity in the room is referring to. (which makes it that much funnier to me). I hadn't seen most of these guys before.
Anyways, it's actually a pretty funny little clip. Check it out.
In related TRON news, apparently they screened 3 minutes of TRON 2 in San Diego, yesterday. You heard me right, TRON MUTHAFUCKIN' 2. Finally. I would really like to see a sequel to that movie.
Jenn turned to me and said, "Oh God. You're not playing that because the name Emily is in the title, are you?"
"No," I said, "I'm playing it because it happens to be on an album that I just got from The Library Grift. But now that you've mentioned it, let's go back and listen to it over again."
I mean, I'm pretty gay for this girl. But wistfully playing songs with her name in the title, just to pine for her? That's a little undignified for a guy as cool as me. I mean, C'mon!
Yeah, so, that's a pretty song. I will have to put it on the secret mixtape CD that I'm designing for her. I hope she likes it!
Bob just posted this over on CIN. It's the new video for the Gnarls Barkeley song, "Who's Gonna Save My Soul Now?" Sure, it's a little bit creepy, but the dialogue exchange between The Guy and The Girl rang true to me.
"It's actually yours now. I don't know why it works this way. But I'm never going to be able to get over you."
"The false memory of what you and I once... had."
"Maybe I can just keep it for a little while and just use it for small things."
"Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Now that you have my heart, I'm an empty cavity. For lack of a better term, heartless."
"a passive aggressive contensciousness that will ruin future relationships for many yers to come."
My buddy, Jenn, forwarded this along to me. MoveOn.org is giving away free Barack Obama buttons.
You can get a free Obama button for your jacket, shirt, bookbag, etc. Alls you gotta do is enter your information to receive your free button. Or make a cash donation to receive multiple Obama buttons to give your friends.
I got my Obama button. I think you need an Obama button. I think everyone needs an Obama button.
Obama poses in front of the Superman statue in Metropolis, IL. I should locate, scan and post my own picture of me, in the same spot, making the same pose.
I keep forgetting that people actually read this blog. When someone, that I haven't seen for a few weeks, comes up to me and says, "How is this Emily Thing going?" it catches me by surprise. I think, "How do you know about this Emily Thing?" and then I think, "Oh, that's right. I print Absolutely Everything in my Fucking Blog."
So, I thought I would drop you a quick email to let you know how things are going.
Well, "The Aloof Stratagem" actually seems to be working pretty well. Although days can go by without me calling her or emailing her, when we DO talk, she seems really interested and even adding information to keep the contact going. Last night, at our next-to-last class, she turned to me across the seating area and mouthed something to me. I had no idea what she was saying, but she sure looked cute. After class, she came up to me and said, "Can I call you in a bit? I have to tell you what just happened." I told her that she could and she said she would call me and I went back into my scene-study with my partner. After class, I texted her to let her know that I was out of the theater. She called me immediately and we had a nice, long chat about how my intern was rude to her in class. (I missed the whole thing.) I really enjoyed talking to her. It was wonderful. But I didn't say that. I just hung back and let her drive and when there was a lull, I contributed to what she was saying. We ended up talking about other things and the call lasted nearly the whole bus ride. At the end, I could tell that she didn't want to stop talking. We ended the call and I fought the urge to send her a text telling her how wonderful I think that she is.
Today, I just got another call. Although it started out as a call about my intern and her scene, it shifted to talk about her upcoming travel plans and the job that she doesn't want anymore. not whining or anything, just open discussion about the job. (She's in ad sales and is OVER it, altogether.)
The whole time we were talking, all I could think was, "I REALLY want to see you before you leave for the weekend." Instead, what I said was, "So, when do you fly out?" She told me. Friday. In the afternoon. And then she said, "I guess I'll see you when I get back. Or I might call you before then and maybe we can get together." I said, "I would really like that," as cooly as possible. I didn't say what I was thinking, which was, "Can we please? Can we? Can we? Can we? GOD! LET'S GET TOGETHER!"
According to the rules of "The Aloof Stratagem", the ball is in her court. She gets to decide when and where we see each other again. I am available and interested, but not pursuing. Which gives her a little room to decide how and when she would like to pursue me. As Jenn explained it to me, yesterday, "Nothing drives a girl crazier about a guy, than when you like him and you think that he likes you, but for whatever reason, he isn't calling you. You catch yourself picking up your phone and saying, I'll just call him real quick about this other thing and then you don't because you don't want to freak him out. I guarantee you, she's thinking about it, out there, wherever she is."
This shouldn't be working. It's entirely counter-intuitive. It's dishonest and mis-representational of who I am, what I feel and how I express myself. I am literally pretending to be someone other than who I am, to pique her interest.
But it's working. She's calling me. She seems to be interested. I very well might get to see her before she leaves for her vacation. Things actually seem to be progressing forward and we are getting closer.
I would be more resistant of this whole deception, if I didn't think she was absolutely wonderful. She's beautiful and smart and funny and sexy. She's confident and capable. I was thinking, as we had dinner on Sunday, "I could get used to having this beautiful person around, more often."
Let's hope that happens...
So, that's the update.
Cheers, Mr.B
PS. Yesterday, Jenn also added. "It's ridiculous that I am having to teach you how to be aloof with girls. Most guys are experts at it. They can't help it. It's what they naturally do. What's wrong with you, that you have to fake it, in order to interest a girl? It's ridiculous."
Trefrog just posted some pics from the July show of "Sickest Stories" in his flickr account.
I don't know how it happened, but Harz has become the Patron Saint of the show. Harz is a walking, talking, scarred advertisement for the show. You look at him and think, "I bet that fucker has some hilarious stories," and he does. Can't wait to see what be brings to New York.
Anyways, check out these pics. Greg's a really talented photog.
Cast Photo.
C'mon! Get Happy! That's Happy The Human Pincushion, with a spike through his cheeks, with a bag hanging from it, filled with pool balls. Yeah. It's that kind of show.
Harz Scars.
Btw, the story that Harz told about how he got the scar on his chest is one of the funniest, most tragic, hilariously horrible stories I've ever heard at the show. It was definitely a crowd pleaser! I would retell it here, but why give away (for free) what we can charge $10 for? (See the show, ya ninny!)
Gilmour and I were talking tonight about how often people's reputation often times doesn't match the facts. The better you get to know someone, the better you're able to judge how closely the stories resemble the truth. And in some cases, you're actually present for events that eventually get turned into a story and you know, from personal experience, that the story has evolved past the facts. Happens all the time. Especially in the backwaters of a sub-set of a sub-set of sub-set of an artistic community.
Rather than sit around and wait for you people to take my stories, spice them up a bit with a few well-chosen embellishments, I thought I'd take matters into my own hands. Leaving truth and fact behind, I'm beginning a new trend here, by supplying you with stories of my mighty legend to begin dispensing amongst the proletariat. Just pick your favorite legend from this pre-approved list and begin telling it to anyone who will listen.
The first time someone that I don't know recognizes me from the legend that we're spreading here, I will buy that person (and the person who told them the legend) the drink of their choice. Standing offer.
Let's get down to the busy work of creating a legacy for me, folks. Here goes!
10 Mighty Deeds From A Mighty Man (all true!)
1. Once, on the IO stage, I did a scene that was so funny, that an audience members' colon collapsed. He died shortly thereafter, but only after he thanked me for the set.
2. I created the world's most complex and mind-blowing warm-up game. It's called "Daredevil Cats" and was performed absolutely correctly one time only. Lesser improvisers have lost fingers playing "Daredevil Cats" before they are ready for it. If you play it correctly, it unlocks secrets of time and space, giving you "The Perfect Show".
3. There's a couch backstage at The Second City that's named after me. Rumor has it, I balled Mary Tyler Moore on that couch. Twice.
4. Before every performance, I tap the bottom of my right shoe twice, look up into the heavens and say, "This one is for you, Danny" and then go onstage to rock it out. Nobody knows who Danny is.
5. On the day that I was born, Del Close woke up, startled, from drug-induced nightmare and was heard to utter, "Behold, The Destroyer Comes" before he threw up on his cat, shot the contents of a Flav-O-Ice into a vein in his arm and passed out again. The Flav-O-Ice was a blue one.
6. In college, I studied and mastered the Ancient Oriental Secret of The Time-Delayed Female Palm Orgasm. At a pre-appointed time in the future, any woman who shakes hands with me has an intense, eye-crossing, toe-curling orgasm. If they palm a twenty to me, I throw in a second one. Just for kicks.
7. I did a scene once at IO that featured object work so strong, that a team-mate of mine entered an imaginary door that I created with my imagination and actually left the stage. And this world. That kid was never heard from again. His name was not Danny.
8. I invented the hip, slang terms "What up?" and "If by X, you mean Y, then yes." and "You call this a vacation?" That last one is about to break big on the pop culture. You'll see.
9. I'm in the middle of writing my book on improvisational techniques that no living person has ever read. The title of the book is "The Three Things You Need To Know To Be A Comedy God". It's written by in a Polynesian virgin's menstrual blood on sheets of pressed gold in a language that I invented, using the guidance of Chris Farley's ghost. The book is two pages long and can be read logically normally and reflected in a mirror.
10. People often call me "The Beatles of Improv". When you point out that "Beatles" is plural and I am singular, you get kicked in the balls.
There you go, Dear Readers. Pick the Legend that rings the most true to you and start spreadin' the Good Word. There might be a drink in it for ya!
Credit to Dan Savage who posted this on his blog this week...
This is a really shocking video. I think it's the only example of Hitler speaking in English, that I've ever seen. I need to do some research into the occasion and the reason for his taking the time to give this speech in a language other than his own, but his message is pretty clear. He's "moving on up" and then details the targets for his move. The bit where he says that they (the Nazis) finally got their "piece of the pie", reminded me of Daniel Day Lewis's milkshake speech from "There Will Be Blood." You can just see the crazy, fervor in Hitler's eyes. Absolutely chilling.
You ABSOLUTELY have to watch this. With sound. Thank me later.
He came in to pick up a script and I introduced myself to him. I've talked to him on the phone and we both played the "Nice to have a face to put to the name" game. We chatted briefly about the script that he's considering to perform for our upcoming season. If he goes with the script that he's just picked up, it's going to be VERY CONTROVERSIAL. Not an original piece, but one that will touch on issues that people are not going to be ready to deal with.
So, of course, he and I are both excited that he might do it. Turns out that he likes to stir up an audience, too.
I ended things by telling him to give me a call if he needed anything. Same offer I would make to any of our mainstage actors. I thought it would be nice to begin by treating him like a member of the family that I am pleased to meet, but not a superstar celebrity type. In the long run, I think he'll appreciate being able to relax, do his job, and shake off some of the pressure to "be a celebrity".
I gotta tell my roommate, though. He's a big fan of this guy's show and I bet he'll be pretty excited that I met him today.
It was everything that I could possibly want from a first date.
Casual drinks and conversation together in a Starbucks, pre-show.
The show was a delightful, light comedy piece that we both really enjoyed.
After the show, we went to the reception and I looked like a rockstar for covering the tab, knowing lots of people and for standing up to two different pushy bar employees with cool confidence.
As much as she enjoyed the total experience, Emily also found time to spend with me. We told "Embarrassing Gig" stories and talked about our future aspirations. She asked me a little bit about Kentucky. She's very gracious. Very smart about how she interracts with people. I felt well taken care of.
After dinner and a very few drinks, she allowed me to walk her home. The walk to her apartment was light and easy. I enjoyed this part, the most. The evening was cool and we walked past row after row of lovely brownstones, in our neighborhood. I had my hands in my pockets as we slowly shuffled along. There was no pressure for either of us to do anything other than enjoy the moment.
I dropped her off. She hugged me. I hugged her back. That was very nice. We made loose plans to get together again some time soon. Again, all very light and easy.
I cheerfully thanked her for a great evening and then walked away before I turned into a complete dipshit on the sidewalk in front of her apartment. I didn't want her to see on my face, how much I was mooning over her. I thought that might add too much pressure to her. So, I made a quick, charming escape.
She said, "I really had a great time tonight. We will have to get together again, some time soon. I will see you in class on Tuesday."
Acting on advice from Jenn, I'm resisting the urge to send a follow-up email or text. I won't work to set the next date or to try to begin a longer, casual conversation over email or cell. According to Jenn, I need to "let her come to [me], by giving her some room to miss [me], just a little bit." So, I'm enjoying the evening for what it was and letting things just "be as they are" and as much as I would like to see her... I'll just wait for that to happen, in it's own sweet time.
It seems to me to be a counter-productive way to get to know someone better... acting against one's instincts or expressing genuine affection that one feels, but I'm chalking all of that up to the inherent mysteries of women. Going out a long way, just to come back a short distance.
It was a great evening, though. Sitting out in the garden of the bar with her, talking theater and performance, with fountains around us and a slight, cool breeze was a highlight of the evening.
Coming on the heels of Bad Date Weekend, I wasn't looking for anyone or for anything.
I was just going to my Meisner class, ready to re-connect with my inner actor, etc. etc. etc.
Emily is in that class.
I am terrified of Emily.
She's 26 and young and superhot. She's clearly smart and confident in her youth and life. She's comfortable onstage and she fearlessly attacks her scene. And she awakens all of my inner collegiat insecurities. If she talks to me, I am suddenly my most timid, college-age self, only in this aging, balding, fattening body. I lack the hard belly of my college days and my long hair to protect me from her wily, girly charms.
Naturally, I've been avoiding her as much as possible.
Which hasn't always worked. I've taken the stage to do my scene and she's the person who gets up to join me. On Day One, she was my partner and we did the exercise where we stare at our partner and scrutinize them physically for two minutes and then describe them, making guesses to personality based upon posture, dress, etc. She described me first and I caught myself embarrased by my clothes that day and the tuft of chest hair that they revealed. And the thinning hair. When it was my turn to describe her, i stuck to her clothes only and said that she "had smart eyes, very clever". I didn't talk about the way that her eyebrows arch when she's considering something. Or her caramel-colored skin. Or the way that her hair has slipped out from her headband and thin wisps of it have fallen down her neck. Or her the sleeveless shirt which showed off how lithe and agile her arms are. How exquisitively lovely Emily is. All of that was left unsaid.
In the notes section of the exercise, she said, "He was so quiet and reserved, when he was describing me. I trusted him and knew he wouldn't attack me or tear me apart. The quieter he got while describing me, the more that I wanted to lean in and listen to him." I didn't tell her that I got quiet because I didn't want to betray how lovely I thought that she was. We're not THAT honest in our meisner class.
That was a month ago. And I've avoided her, every week since then.
Last night, she chose to be my scene partner again. I entered the door into the scene and helped her look for a contact lens that wasn't really there. In the notes, after the scene, our teacher was more concerned with the lack of an actual, physical contact lens. When he got to me and said, "What were you feeling in that scene?" I answered, "I was just happy to be here with her." And she looked at me...
After class, as we were all leaving, Emily cut through the crowd to come talk to me. She hates her current job, ad sales, and she is investigating other options. She wanted to talk to me about the theater and what might be happening here. She also wanted to know about how I got my job and any tips I had for getting a job in the theater. I was a little caught-off-guard by the attention, but I kept things professional. I talked about the websites that I use to post jobs and the websites where I can usually find jobs. We walked as we talked and I found myself at my office door. I went inside to gather up my things and she leaned on the door frame, asking questions and listening to my answers.
Another co-worker came in and we all three talked about the job market and working in theater. Emily was comfortable chatting with Rose. Rose is also extraordinarily lovely. So, I avoid her too. And because I avoid her and I've never flirted with her at all, she's comfortable around me and wants to hang out in my office. Exactly the thing that I don't want to happen, but what can you do?
Two more co-workers showed up, having returned from the $2 wells drinks and 30 cent wings special, at the bar next door. They both had rosy cheeks. But it was after work and a hot summer day. The perfect day to hae a beer and watch the All Stars game. Upon hearing that the game was on, Emily perked up, looked dead at me and said, "You want to go next door with me and have a beer and watch the game?" Earlier, when my intern made the same offer, I declined, saying that I had to go let my dog out. I looked at Emily and said, "I'd love to."
And so we ended up in a Sports bar, talking and chatting more than watching the game. We talked about her travels to Europe and my childhood in Kentucky. We both told funny college stories. We both talked about class and our classmates and the crazy shit that people do in a Meisner class. We're both waiting to see when two girls will kiss. We both think it's inevitable.
She mentioned, in passing, that she's been single for three months now.
A friend of hers, Kristin, joined us at the bar. She was lovely and charming, too. They were both drinking cocktails and I passed over a tray of mild hot wings to her and watched Kristin dig into them. All three of us were sucking hot sauce off of our fingers and talking about movies, HBO shows and robot dinosaurs. You know, Important Stuff.
Emily asked me if I was seeing anyone and I said that I wasn't.
Another co-worker, Kevin, joined us and we all talked about how we all danced, when we danced. With demonstrations. Lots of laughs, all the way around.
Her knee brushed up against mine under the table, then rested against it and stayed there. I froze, like a man electrocuted, suddenly very, very nervous now.
Out of nowhere, Kevin asked when i was going to see his next show at the theater. It is opening this weekend. I said, "I don't know. Two or three weeks in, I guess. That's when I usually go." He quietly shook his head "no" and said, "You should go to opening night. We're papering the house AND we have critics in the house AND we're hosting a reception afterwards. You should come to the opening, this Sunday night... and you should invite your friend to come with you."
And he looked at Emily. And she looked at me.
And said, "That sounds great. I'd love to come."
"Okay. It's a plan. Emily, do you want to catch a show with me, this weekend," I asked.
She answered, "I'd love to." Same thing I said, when she invited me out that night.
So, we exchanged numbers and email addresses and set a call time and that was the plan. We also made plans to see "The Dark Knight" with a group of friends, next week.
We settled the tab and Kevin offered me a ride home. All three of us walked south on Lincoln Ave. The girls chatted about girl stuff and I caught Kevin up on Robot Dinosaurs. We got the corner where we all parted ways and Kristin and I shook hands, "it was a pleasure meeting you" and Emily hugged Kevin and I had just enough time to think, "Oh fuck" and she came at me, all smiles and hugged me too and I wrapped my arms around her back and we stood there, hugging for a bit. We broke apart and they went one way and Kevin and I crossed the street.
Kevin said, "Wow."
And I said, "Yeah."
I don't know where she came from. Or what I've done right to catch the interest of this extraordinarily beautiful woman. I didn't even consider this as a possibility. She is way too lovely for me. A bit out of the league that I am getting too old to play in.
I'm going to approach this one with a light touch and Realistic Expectations. I will be open to new experiences and less interested in applying lessons learned from previous relationships. I'll say "yes" to new experiences with her and look at her with the possibility that this might turn out all right, after all. I'll be less guarded and more open to exploring her uniqueness.
My new philosophy is to "Say yes to every adventure that comes my way" and when she arched those eyebrows at me and said, "Do you want to come with me?" I put aside the events of last weekend and said "Yes" to Emily and had the best night out with a girl in weeks. Months.
Astrobasego - the company that produces The Venture Brothers is selling t-shirts for the show each week to correspond to each episode.
This week's t-shirt is "The Mystic Order of The Triad."
It looka likea dees!
I just ordered it. Wearing it feels a little bit like this...
My obsession with clothing that references fictional locations, organizations, characters and events adds another t-shirt to my closet. That should go nicely with the "Rushmore Academy Beekeepers Society" t-shirt, the "Team Zissou" t-shirt, the "Air Kentucky" T-Shirt and the "I Got Wood" T-shirt. Which reminds me, I still have to sew those patches on my jacket. You know, the ones from "Ghostbusters", "Buckaroo Banzai" and the "Bureau For Paranormal Research and Defense".
Because that's EXACTLY the kind of nerd that I am.
Nerdily Yours, Mr.B
PS. I added a button to the top corner of this blog for a while, to keep people updated on the developing t-shirt offers from AstroBaseGo. (I am privately pretty steamed that I didn't get in on this in time to snag a "Guild of Calamitous Intent" t-shirt. Goddammit.
Woke up this morning at 7am, rushing to get cleaned up and out the door to make it to the theater by 8am. We're installing a new accounting software program today and training the staff on it. Training began at 9am. The idea was that we would finish installing it from 8 to 9, this morning. (Because there were complications with the install on Friday and on Sunday. Yes, I came into the office on Sunday.)
Got to the theater at 8:30am, because the buses were running slowly because of the re-routing for the folk festival and also because I was running a little late.
For the ridiculous amount of drinking that I did last night, I feel surprisingly lively and sharp.
My boss doesn't mind that I was late. (I texted ahead.) She seems to be wearing a general sense that "he knows what he's doing" that forgives me for little transgressions like the tardiness. I think that the text helped that too.
Nothing goes right when we begin the install. Our servers and systems are so old that they can't even run the program. (The accounting software that we're getting away from is on DOS, people.) Which means that we UNINSTALL the program, upgrade the MSDE system and then RE-install the program as well as the accounting database.
While this is happening, I also have a new employee at the theater. A department head. A Very Important Person. And I'm getting him set up on his computer with Outlook, printers, contact sheets, his files and the files of his predecessor.
I run away from him periodically and check the un-install that's happening, as I type this. My accountants are being trained on a dummy system in one of the theaters upstairs.
And to top it all off, the President of the Board just arrived and has taken my boss out for coffee and an important meeting of some kind.
I feel productive today, people.
I am "Getting Things Done" today, people.
The only break from the productivity was to hammer out this entry and eat a donut that I sent my intern to buy for me.
I like being productive. I like getting things done. And I like it that my boss sees me working extra time this weekend and coming in two hours early and looks at me, not like the "retarded boy that replaced her assistant of four years" but as "the guy who knows what he's doing". That's the guy that I want to be.
...paid for everything. You didn't notice, but I did.
...suggested that we leave the bar and drink at the closed, private bar. Which we did.
...ditched the fratboy who was hitting on the blonde. I left him barfing in the greenery with a glass of water when he was done depositing 10 hours of margaritas in the foliage.
...encouraged you and the blonde to kiss.
...took pictures of you and the blonde kissing.
...sent pictures of the blonde and you kissing to Steve from Alabama. Steve from Alabama sent me the video of you and the blonde kissing.
...apologized to the manager, after he found the pitcher you'd hidden in your bag. I returned it, apologizing for my drunken friends and then walked away, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
...poured proper drinks at the bar, including three shots for myself while everyone else was rolling on the floor. I drank alone.
...mopped up the spilled beer when you were straddling my friend on the floor.
...grabbed your forearms and pulled you close to me for our first kiss, because you were too drunk to do it. I doubt you will remember it.
...found an ATM for the blonde, hailed her a cab and sent her home, while you laid groaning on the floor.
...found another cab for you and me and my friend. Got us all home. Paid for the whole trip. Absolutely uncertain that my new ATM card would get us all home. Again, you had no idea.
...gave you a goodbye kiss when you left the cab to enter your apartment building.
You didn't know it then and you won't know it for a while yet, but that was the kiss goodbye. That was the last time that we'll ever go out again.
I don't mind the drunken shenanigans. I don't mind you rolling around on the floor and making out with every girl there. I don't mind the screaming and the singing and inviting the blonde over to our table from nowhere. I just can't forgive you for not including me in all of that. For ignoring me as much as you did.
I suppose that's what I get for dating an actress... again.
Lesson learned.
Tonight, after everyone else piled out of my cab and I raced home, north on Western Ave, over the viaduct, allowing my open-palmed hand to surf on the currents of the wind, I never felt more powerfully, profoundly alive than I did, at that moment. Is it any coincidence that I had to be alone, before I finally realized how alive I was?
Goodnight, moon.
Cheers, Mr.B
UPDATE: A more considered, reasonable perspective on this date is included in the comments below. It's fair to say that I was pretty drunk and a little upset, when I wrote this blog entry. A day later, totally sober, and the date looked like shenanigans, but not that big a deal, actually.
Hey jerks, check out this video for WALL-E that I found online...
Soooooomebody got access to a lot of the actual visuals from the actual movie and set it to the Michael Crawford recording of "Put on your Sunday Clothes". It's a great way to listen to the song and see clips from the movie, without having to buy the soundtrack or see the movie again. (The movie holds up under second viewings, I am happy to report.)
Check it out...
For reference, here's the actual clip from "Hello Dolly"...
Yesterday evening, I was walking north on Lincoln Ave. I was on my way to the Howard train station, to get to the theater for a Stinger show. It's summer in the city and a stretch of Lincoln is closed, right by the library for a folk music festival. There are stages set up on the ballfields and as I walked past the festival, I could hear the high, tinny sound of bluegrass music over the outdoor projection system. It was a good day to be out for a stroll to the train station.
As I walked north on Lincoln, nearing the Daily Grill, I saw a mother look around her and say, "Kai?" I slowed my walk up to the corner to see what was happening.
The mother let go of the stroller that she was pushing and her friend, who had her own kid-filled stroller grabbed the handles of the abandoned stroller and they both called out for Kai.
"Kai?"
"Kai?!?"
The mother looked back towards me and the crowd of people that were exiting the festival, frantically calling, "KAI? KAI! KAI?"
The other mother said, "Where is he?"
Kai's mother, nearing tears, said, "I don't know. I just lost him. He was RIGHT HERE! KAI!"
Kai's father jogged over to them, carrying another little boy. "What's going on. Where's Kai?"
Kai's mothers face was red and she was about to go tearing back through the crowd. "I Don't Know! He was just here. He left the fair with us and I can't find him!"
The other mother stood helplessly at the corner, holding both strollers, scanning any stopped cars to see if Kai had been hit. The father started to put the other little boy into the stroller to go running, looking for Kai. The mother was scanning the crowd. Everyone was yelling for Kai.
I stopped at the corner, waiting for the light to change, genuinely fearful for this family.
Kai's mother slipped around the corner of The Daily Grill and that's the moment that Kai chose for his big reveal. He jumped out from behind the corner and yelled, "Boo!" waved his hands as scarily as he could. His mother staggered a step back and grabbed his forearm and fought to fight the panic in her voice.
"KAI! Where were you?!? Don't you EVER, EVER DO THAT AGAIN!"
Kai's dad ran up. "Where was he?"
The other mother said, "He was hiding around the corner here."
Kai's mother was crying and she looked at his dad and he took Kai from her and walked him ten feet away, admonishing him in quiet angry tones. Kai's mother went back to her stroller, wiping the tears from her face, while the other mother comforted her. The kids in the strollers watched the whole scene, concerned. Kai looked scared and upset and confused. He'd planned this hilarious bit to scare his mom and somehow it had all gone wrong and everyone seemed like they were mad at him and that absolutely wasn't the reaction that he thought he would've gotten. As his dad bent over him, angrily whispering to him, Kai looked at his mom, at me, at the other adults at the corner, confused and frustrated that people didn't get his joke.
The light changed and I crossed over the street, heading to the train station.
As I walked on, I was instantly connected to a memory from my own past. A time when I found myself in exactly the same position that Kai was in.
It had to be the summer of 1985. I was ten years old. My dad, stepmom, stepsister and I had gone to King's Islan, in Ohio for a day of amusement park fun. We took trips like that, all the time. A long day of very, early driving, followed by an even longer day of walking around the park and compromising over what rides that the kids were allowed to ride. I always wanted to ride the craziest thrill rides. My parents didn't want to ride anything too extreme. My step-sister wanted to ride any ride that I didn't want to ride. One of those days in the amusement park, where nobody got what they wanted.
I was always a fiercely independant child. I spent a lot of time playing by myself. I was always wandering off and having adventures alone. So, it was a natural extension of that, when I suggested that my dad and stepmom spent the day with my step-sister and that I would wander off and enjoy the park alone. Doing and seeing whatever I wanted to do and see.
Later, there was some contention between my dad and I about how the conversation went down. We both agreed that the discussion took place on the observation deck of the replica of the Eiffel Tower that served as King's Islands signature exhibit. As I remember it, I approached my dad and said, "Hey dad, how about if I go explore the park on my own and I'll meet up with you guys at the base of the Eiffel Tower in three hours, at 4pm. Can we do that?" From my dad's perspective, he remember me saying, "Hey dad," and nothing else past that. I remember him saying, "Okay, that's fine. See you at 4pm." He didn't remember any of that. So, that's how I found myself wandering over to the Eiffel Tower elevator, taking it down alone and heading off to explore the park by myself.
I planned to spend my entire three hours in the Hanna-Barbera Land. First stop was "The Smurfs Adventure", where guests rode boats down a river ride past audio-animatronic versions of the Smurfs, in their village. I thought that this sort of immersion into a cartoon world was magical. I think I rode it three different times. I rode the Merry Go Round. I watched a Marionette Show. I rode the kiddie roller coaster two or three times, enjoying it every time. I rode the Scooby Doo bumper cars, ramming my mini Mystery Machine into other mini Mystery Machines populated by father-son combinations.
I was on The Flintstones helicopter ride when my family found me. I saw them and waved at them and I could see the red-faced rage from both my stepmom and my dad. He pointed ominously at the ground at his feet in a gesture that clearly said, "COME HERE, RIGHT NOW!" I slumped in my helicopter ride, knowing I was in trouble for something, but not what, exactly. Parents could be such a-holes, sometimes. When the ride ended, I seriously considered staying in the helicopter one more time, dreading meeting up with my dad. I got off the ride and my dad had made his way through the exit lines of the ride, grabbed me by the arm and dragged me over to a bench for a proper ass-chewing.
I remember the heat of that summer day. I remember the shame of all the people passing by, looking at us, while I got chewed out. I remember that we were there by the "Emergency Services" trailer. I didn't know that an Emergency Services trailer even existed before then. I remember my stepsister smiling, because I was getting my ass chewed. I don't remember anything my dad said, but I remember how angry he was and how red his face was.
I think I tried to plead my case, "But you said..." and "I thought we agreed..." and he would shut down everything I said. I remember thinking that it was supremely unfair for me to get chastised for acting on the deal that we'd agreed upon. I think I cried at the frustration and the injustice of it all.
The plan changed and my dad marched me out to the car, where he and I were going to wait for the rest of the afternoon while my stepmother and stepsister explored the rest of the park alone, together. My dad said that it wasn't fair for them to have wasted so much of their day, looking for me. So, they still got to enjoy the park, while he and I waited for them in the car. I remember how hot the vinyl seat was, as I argued my case over and over with my dad. He wasn't hearing any of it.
Several hours later, my stepmother and stepsister joined us and we all suffered a silent, angry, car ride home. The day was absolutely ruined for everyone.
In my case, it was a misunderstanding. I thought we had a plan and I was following it. And for whatever reason, my dad didn't hear the plan, or forgot about it or something. I suspect he didn't hear me as he never would've agreed to set his ten year old son loose in a park by himself. So, the two hours after I left them, my dad had been as frantically worried as Kai's mom and dad were. They scoured the park, looking for me. Nearly in a panic. In their minds, I was kidnapped or in imminent danger of being kidnapped. And it was a race against time to find me, before the pedophiles of the world did. And so the anger that my dad felt, when he found me was intensified by the fear and panic that he'd felt, while looking for me. A feeling that I couldn't imagine 23 years ago. But the same feelings that I witnessed in Kai's parents, yesterday.
And standing at the street corner, waiting to cross, I could empathize with the panic that Kai's parents felt. And when Kai played his joke and it all backfired on him and he got unfairly chastised, I could also empathize with him too. Over the span of my lifetime, I am now an adult, but I've been a child and I can see both sides of the equation now.
On the train, I gave up my seat to a dad, pushing an empty stroller. He thanked me and I plugged in my ipod for the train ride to Belmont. The young dad motioned for someone to come sit with him and it turned out to be Kai and his brother. I watched as they stood on the seat, pointing things out to their dad, that he looked at with love and interest. I was happy to see that the botched bit didn't ruin the day for them. On the train ride home for them, Kai's bit was forgotten by everyone involved and they were reunited again as a family. Perhaps the lessened severity of Kai's bit helped everyone put it aside. If they'd spent two hours looking for him, perhaps they would all be exhausted and crazed with panic, too. I prefer to think that everyone realized that it was an honest mistake, Kai wanted to scare his mom and that's what little boys do, how could he know that he'd clued into every parents private nightmare?
I like to think that 23 years from now, Kai won't remember that day or how badly he scared his mom and dad. He won't cranio-jack into his Apple Iputer and cogni-blog about his experiences at the festival, yesterday.
If you can, go call your dad now. I'm going to go call mine.
See if you can identify the exact moment that Oswalt goes from "pretty funny comedy speech" to "brilliantly written, life experience speech".
What can I say? The man's a genius.
Check it out... (You can also read the speech on his website, here.)
First off, I want to thank the teachers and faculty of Broad Run High School for first considering and then inviting me to speak here. It was flattering, I am touched and humbled, and you have made a grave mistake.
I’m being paid for this, right? Oh, wait, there’s some advice, right off the bat – always get paid. If you make enough money in this world you can smoke pot all day and have people killed.
I’m sorry, that was irresponsible.
You shouldn’t have people killed.
Boom! Marijuana endorsement eleven seconds into my speech! Too late to cancel me now!
It’s dumb-ass remarks like that which kept me out of the National Honor Society and also made me insanely wealthy. If I move to Brazil.
I graduated from Broad Run High School 21 years ago. That means, theoretically, I could be – each and every one of you – your father. And I’m speaking especially to the black and Asian students.
So now I’m going to try to give all of you some advice as if I contained fatherly wisdom, which I do not. I contain mostly caffeine, Cheet-o dust, fear and scotch.
I know most of you worked very hard to get here today but guess what? The Universe sent you a pasty goblin to welcome you into the world. Were The Greaseman and Arch Campbell not available?
So, 1987. That’s when I got my diploma. But I want to tell you something that happened the week before I graduated. It was life-changing, it was profound, and it was deeper than I realized at the time.
The week before graduation I strangled a hobo. Oh wait, that’s a different story. That was college. I’m speaking at my college later this month. I’ve got both speeches here. Let me sum up the college speech – always have a gallon of bleach in your trunk.
High school. A week before I graduated high school I had dinner, in Leesburg, with a local banker who was giving me a partial scholarship. I still don’t understand why. Maybe he had me confused with another student, someone who hadn’t written his AP English paper on comparisons between Jay Gatsby and Spider-Man. But, I was getting away with it, and I love money and food, so double win.
And I remember, I’m sitting at this dinner, with a bunch of other kids from the other local high schools. And I’m trying my pathetic best to look cool and mysterious, because I was 17 and so into the myth of myself. Remember, this dinner and this scholarship was happening to me.
And I figured this banker guy was a nice guy but hey, I’m the special one at the table. I had a view of the world, where I was eternally Bill Murray in Stripes. I’d be the one with the quips and insights at this dinner. This old man in a suit doesn’t have anything to teach me beyond signing that check. I’ve got a cool mullet and a skinny leather tie from Chess King. And check out my crazy suspenders with the piano keys on them. Have you ever seen Blackadder? ‘Cuz I’ll recite it.
And then this banker – clean-shaven, grey suit and vest – you’d never look twice at him on the street – he told me about The Five Environments.
He leans forward, near the end of the dinner, and he says to me, “There are Five Environments you can live in on this planet. There’s The City. The Desert. The Mountains. The Plains. And The Beach.
You can live in combinations of them. Maybe a city in the desert, or in the mountains by the ocean. Or you could choose just one. Out in the plains somewhere, perhaps.
“But you need to get out there and travel, and figure out where you thrive.
“Some places you’ll go to and you’ll feel yourself wither. Your brain will fog up, your body won’t respond to your thoughts and desires, and you’ll feel sad and angry.
“You need to find out which of the Five Environments are yours. If you belong by the ocean, then the mountains will ruin you. If you’re suited for the blue solitude of the plains, then the city will be a tight, roaring prison cell that’ll eat you alive.
He was right. I’ve traveled and tested his theory and he was absolutely right. There are Five Environments. If you find the right combination, or the perfect singularity, your life will click…into…place. You will click into place.
And I remember, so clearly, driving home from that dinner, how lucky I felt to have met someone who affirmed what I was already planning to do after high school. I was going to roam and blitz and blaze my way all over the planet.
Anywhere but here. Anywhere but Northern Virginia. NoVa. You know what a “nova” is? It’s when a white dwarf star gobbles up so much hydrogen from a neighboring star it causes a cataclysmic nuclear explosion. A cosmic event.
Well, I was a white dwarf and I was definitely doing my share of gobbling up material. But I didn’t feel like any events in my life were cosmic. The “nova” I lived in was a rural coma sprinkled with chunks of strip mall numbness. I had two stable, loving parents, a sane and wise little brother and I was living in Sugarland Run, whose motto is, “Ooooh! A bee! Shut the door!”
I wanted to explode. I devoured books and movies and music and anything that would kick open windows to other worlds real or imagined. Sugarland Run, and Sterling and Ashburn and Northern Virginia were, for me, a sprawling batter’s box before real experience began.
And I followed that banker’s advice. I had to get college out of the way but once I got my paper I lit out hard.
Oh this world. Ladies and gentlemen, this world rocks and it never lets up.
I’ve seen endless daylight and darkness in Alaska. I’ve swum in volcanic craters in Hawaii and saw the mystical green flash when the sun sinks behind the Pacific. I got ripped on absinthe in Prague and watched the sun rise over the synagogue where the Golem is supposedly locked in the attic. I stood under the creepy shadow of Christchurch Spitafields, in London’s East End, and sank a pint next door at The Ten Bells, where two of Jack the Ripper’s victims were last seen drinking. I’ve fed gulls at the harbor in Galway, Ireland. I’ve done impromptu Bloomsday tours of Dublin.
I cried my eyes out on the third floor of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, all those paintings that Vincent and his circle have to each other as gifts because they were all broke some cold Christmas long ago. I’ve eaten crocodile in the Laneways of Melbourne Australia and ortolans on the Left Bank of Paris, France.
I’ve been to Canada.
I’ve been to every state in this country. I’ve been to hidden, subterranean restaurants in New York with the guys from Anthrax and eaten at L.A. taquieras with “Weird” Al Yankovic. I held the guitar that Hendrix torched at Monterey Pop and watched Woodstock ’99 burn to the ground. I’ve lingered at the corner of Bush and Stockton in San Francisco where Miles Archer took a bullet in The Maltese Falcon, and brooded over the grave of H.P. Lovecraft in Providence, R.I. I’ve hung out with Donny Osmond and Jim Goad, Suge Knight and Aimee Mann, Bill Hicks and Don Rickles.
I’ve done stand-up comedy in laundromats, soup kitchens and frat houses, and onstage at Lollapalooza and Coachella. I’ve toured with bands, been to the Oscars and the Superbowl, and been killed in movies by vampires, forest fires and air-to-air missiles.
And I missed the banker’s lesson. 100%, I completely missed it.
In my defense, he didn’t even know he was teaching it.
Telling me about the 5 Environments and urging me to travel? That was advice. It wasn’t a lesson. Advice is everywhere in this world. Your friends, family, teachers and strangers are all happy to give it.
A lesson is yours and yours alone. Some of them take years to recognize and utilize.
My lesson was this – experience, and reward and glory are meaningless unless you’re open and present with the people you share them with in the moment.
Let me go back to that dinner, 21 years ago. There I was, shut off from this wise, amazing old man. Then he zaps me with one of the top 5 pieces of information I’ve ever received in this life, and all I was thankful for was how it benefited me.
I completely ignored the deeper lesson which is do not judge, and get outside yourself, and realize that everyone and everything has its own story, and something to teach you, and that they’re also trying – consciously or unconsciously – to learn and grow from you and everything else around them. And they’re trying with the same passion and hunger and confusion that I was feeling – no matter where they were in their lives, no matter how old or how young.
I’m not saying that you guys shouldn’t go out there and see and do everything there is to see and do. Go. As fast as you can. I don’t know how much longer this world has got, to be honest.
All of you have been given a harsh gift. It’s the same gift the graduating class of 1917, and 1938, and 1968 and now you guys got – the chance to enter adulthood when the world teeters on the rim of the sphincter of oblivion. You’re jumping into the deep end. You have no choice but to be exceptional.
But please don’t mistake miles traveled, and money earned, and fame accumulated for who you are.
Because now I understand how the miraculous, horrifying and memorable lurk everywhere. But they’re hidden to the kind of person I was when I graduated high school. And now – and it’s because of my traveling and living and some pretty profound mistakes along the way – they’re all laid open to me. They’re mine for the feasting. In the Sistine Chapel and in a Taco Bell. In Bach’s Goldberg Variations and in the half-heard brain dead chatter of a woman on her cell phone behind me on an airplane. In Baghdad, Berlin and Sterling, Virginia.
I think now about the amazing thunderstorms in the summer evenings. And how – late at night, during a blizzard, you can stand outside and hear the collective, thumping murmur of a million snowflakes hitting the earth, like you’re inside a sleeping god’s thoughts.
I think of the zombie movies I shot back in the gnarled, grey woods and the sad, suburban punks I waited on at Waxie Maxie’s. I think of the disastrous redneck weddings I deejay’d for when I was working for Sounds Unlimited and the Lego spaceships my friends and I would build after seeing Star Wars.
I think about my dad, and how he consoled me when I’d first moved to L.A. and called him, saying I was going into therapy for depression, and how ashamed I was. And he laughed and said, “What the hell’s to be ashamed of?” And I said, “Man, you got your leg machine-gunned in Vietnam. You never went to therapy. Humphrey Bogart never went to therapy.” And my dad said, “Yeah, but Bogie smoked three cartons of cigarettes a day.” And how my mom came down to the kitchen when I was studying for my trig final, at 2 o’clock in the morning, and said, “Haven’t you already been accepted to college?” And I said, “Yeah, but this test is really going to be hard.” And she asked, “What’s the test for again?” And I said, “Calculus” and she closed my notebook and said, “You’ll never use this. Ever. Go to bed or watch a movie.” And how when I got my first ever acting gig, on Seinfeld, my brother sent me a postcard of Minnie Pearl, and he wrote on it, “Never forget, you and her are in the same profession.”
I didn’t realize how all of these places and people and events were just as crucial in shaping me as anything I roamed to the corners of the Earth to see. And they’ve shaped you, and will shape you, whether you realize it now or later. All of you are richer and wiser than you know.
So I will leave you with some final advice. You’ll decide later if this was a lesson. And if you realize there was no lesson in any of this, then that was a lesson.
But I’d like all of you to enter this world, and your exploration of the Five Environments, better armed then I was. And without a mullet. Which I see you’re all way ahead of me on.
First off: Reputation, Posterity and Cool are traps. They’ll drain the life from your life. Reputation, Posterity and Cool = Fear.
Let me put that another way. Bob Hope once said, “When I was twenty, I worried what everything thought of me. When I turned forty, I didn’t care what anyone thought of me. And then I made it to sixty, and I realized no one was ever thinking of me.” And then he pooed his pants, but that didn’t make what he said any less profound.
Secondly: The path is made by walking. And when you’re walking that path, you choose how things affect you. You always have that freedom, no matter how much your liberty it curtailed. You…get to choose…how things affect you.
And lastly, and I guarantee this. It’s the one thing I know ‘cause I’ve experienced it:
There Is No Them.
I’m going to get out of your way now. Get out there. Let’s see which one of you is up here in twenty years. If you’re lacking confidence, remember – I wouldn’t have picked me.
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